A randomized trial comparing structured and lifestyle goals in an internet-mediated walking program for people with type 2 diabetes

Abstract Background The majority of individuals with type 2 diabetes do not exercise regularly. Pedometer-based walking interventions can help; however, pedometer-based interventions targeting only total daily accumulated steps might not yield the same health benefits as physical activity programs specifying a minimum duration and intensity of physical activity bouts. Methods This pilot randomized trial compared two goal-setting strategies: 1) lifestyle goals targeting total daily accumulated step counts and 2) structured goals targeting bout steps defined as walking that lasts for 10 minutes or longer at a pace of at least 60 steps per minute. We sought to determine which goal-setting strategy was more effective at increasing bout steps. Participants were sedentary adults with type 2 diabetes. All participants: wore enhanced pedometers with embedded USB ports; uploaded detailed, time-stamped step-count data to a website called Stepping Up to Health; and received automated step-count feedback, automatically calculated goals, and tailored motivational messages throughout the six-week intervention. Only the automated goal calculations and step-count feedback differed between the two groups. The primary outcome of interest was increase in steps taken during the previously defined bouts of walking (lasting at least 10 minutes or longer at a pace of at least 60 steps per minute) between baseline and end of the intervention. Results Thirty-five participants were randomized and 30 (86%) completed the pilot study. Both groups significantly increased bout steps, but there was no statistically significant difference between groups. Among study completers, bout steps increased by 1921 ± 2729 steps a day. Those who received lifestyle goals were more satisfied with the intervention (p = 0.006) and wore the pedometer more often (p < 0.001) than those who received structured goals. Conclusion In this six-week intervention, Lifestyle Goals group participants achieved increases in bout steps comparable to the increases seen in the Structured Goals group, representing almost a mile a day of additional moderate intensity bout activity. Pedometer-based walking programs that emphasize total accumulated step counts are more acceptable to participants and are as effective at increasing moderate intensity bouts of physical activity as programs that use structured goals. Trial registration NCT00151021http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112366/1/12966_2007_Article_136.pd

A randomized trial comparing structured and lifestyle goals in an internet-mediated walking program for people with type 2 diabetes

BACKGROUND: The majority of individuals with type 2 diabetes do not exercise regularly. Pedometer-based walking interventions can help; however, pedometer-based interventions targeting only total daily accumulated steps might not yield the same health benefits as physical activity programs specifying a minimum duration and intensity of physical activity bouts. METHODS: This pilot randomized trial compared two goal-setting strategies: 1) lifestyle goals targeting total daily accumulated step counts and 2) structured goals targeting bout steps defined as walking that lasts for 10 minutes or longer at a pace of at least 60 steps per minute. We sought to determine which goal-setting strategy was more effective at increasing bout steps. Participants were sedentary adults with type 2 diabetes. All participants: wore enhanced pedometers with embedded USB ports; uploaded detailed, time-stamped step-count data to a website called Stepping Up to Health; and received automated step-count feedback, automatically calculated goals, and tailored motivational messages throughout the six-week intervention. Only the automated goal calculations and step-count feedback differed between the two groups. The primary outcome of interest was increase in steps taken during the previously defined bouts of walking (lasting at least 10 minutes or longer at a pace of at least 60 steps per minute) between baseline and end of the intervention. RESULTS: Thirty-five participants were randomized and 30 (86%) completed the pilot study. Both groups significantly increased bout steps, but there was no statistically significant difference between groups. Among study completers, bout steps increased by 1921 ± 2729 steps a day. Those who received lifestyle goals were more satisfied with the intervention (p = 0.006) and wore the pedometer more often (p < 0.001) than those who received structured goals. CONCLUSION: In this six-week intervention, Lifestyle Goals group participants achieved increases in bout steps comparable to the increases seen in the Structured Goals group, representing almost a mile a day of additional moderate intensity bout activity. Pedometer-based walking programs that emphasize total accumulated step counts are more acceptable to participants and are as effective at increasing moderate intensity bouts of physical activity as programs that use structured goals. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT0015102

Mitigation of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection in Venture Capital Financing: The Influence of the Country’s Institutional Setting

A venture capitalist (VC) needs to trade off benefits and costs when attempting to mitigate agency problems in their investor-investee relationship. We argue that signals of ventures complement the VC’s capacity to screen and conduct a due diligence during the pre-investment phase, but its attractiveness may diminish in institutional settings supporting greater transparency. Similarly, whereas a VC may opt for contractual covenants to curb potential opportunism by ventures in the post-investment phase, this may only be effective in settings supportive of shareholder rights enforcement. Using an international sample of VC contracts, our study finds broad support for these conjectures. It delineates theoretical and practical implications for how investors can best deploy their capital in different institutional settings whilst nurturing their relationships with entrepreneurs

Bioavailable iron in the Southern Ocean: the significance of the iceberg conveyor belt

Productivity in the Southern Oceans is iron-limited, and the supply of iron dissolved from aeolian dust is believed to be the main source from outside the marine reservoir. Glacial sediment sources of iron have rarely been considered, as the iron has been assumed to be inert and non-bioavailable. This study demonstrates the presence of potentially bioavailable Fe as ferrihydrite and goethite in nanoparticulate clusters, in sediments collected from icebergs in the Southern Ocean and glaciers on the Antarctic landmass. Nanoparticles in ice can be transported by icebergs away from coastal regions in the Southern Ocean, enabling melting to release bioavailable Fe to the open ocean. The abundance of nanoparticulate iron has been measured by an ascorbate extraction. This data indicates that the fluxes of bioavailable iron supplied to the Southern Ocean from aeolian dust (0.01–0.13 Tg yr-1) and icebergs (0.06–0.12 Tg yr-1) are comparable. Increases in iceberg production thus have the capacity to increase productivity and this newly identified negative feedback may help to mitigate fossil fuel emissions

How Do Employees Perceive Corporate Responsibility? Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Corporate Stakeholder Responsibility Scale

Recent research on the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has highlighted the need for improved measures to evaluate how stakeholders perceive and subsequently react to CSR initiatives. Drawing on stakeholder theory and data from five samples of employees (N = 3,772), the authors develop and validate a new measure of corporate stakeholder responsibility (CStR), which refers to an organization’s context-specific actions and policies designed to enhance the welfare of various stakeholder groups by accounting for the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance; it is conceptualized as a superordinate, multidimensional construct. Results from exploratory factor analyses, first- and second-order confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation modeling provide strong evidence of the convergent, discriminant, incremental, and criterion-related validities of the proposed CStR scale. Two-wave longitudinal studies further extend prior theory by demonstrating that the higher-order CStR construct relates positively and directly to organizational pride and perceived organizational support, as well as positively and indirectly to organizational identification, job satisfaction, and affective commitment, beyond the contribution of overall organizational justice, ethical climate, and prior measures of perceived CSR

Hf–Zr anomalies in clinopyroxene from mantle xenoliths from France and Poland: implications for Lu–Hf dating of spinel peridotite lithospheric mantle

Clinopyroxenes in some fresh anhydrous spinel peridotite mantle xenoliths from the northern Massif Central (France) and Lower Silesia (Poland), analysed for a range of incompatible trace elements by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, show unusually strong negative anomalies in Hf and Zr relative to adjacent elements Sm and Nd, on primitive mantle-normalised diagrams. Similar Zr–Hf anomalies have only rarely been reported from clinopyroxene in spinel peridotite mantle xenoliths worldwide, and most are not as strong as the examples reported here. Low Hf contents give rise to a wide range of Lu/Hf ratios, which over geological time would result in highly radiogenic εHf values, decoupling them from εNd ratios. The high 176Lu/177Hf could in theory produce an isochronous relationship with 176Hf/177Hf over time; an errorchron is shown by clinopyroxene from mantle xenoliths from the northern Massif Central. However, in a review of the literature, we show that most mantle spinel peridotites do not show such high Lu/Hf ratios in their constituent clinopyroxenes, because they lack the distinctive Zr–Hf anomaly, and this limits the usefulness of the application of the Lu–Hf system of dating to garnet-free mantle rocks. Nevertheless, some mantle xenoliths from Poland or the Czech Republic may be amenable to Hf-isotope dating in the future

Multi-Informant Predictors of Social Inclusion for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders Attending Mainstream School

This study examined differential profiles of behavioural characteristics predictive of successful inclusion in mainstream education for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and comparison students. Multiple regression analyses using behavioural ratings from parents, teachers and peers found some evidence for differential profiles predicting peer acceptance and rejection. High levels of peer-rated shyness significantly predicted social rejection in comparison students only. Parent-rated prosocial behaviour also differentially predicted social acceptance; high-levels of prosocial behaviour predicted acceptance in comparison students, but low-levels were predictive for students with ASD. These findings suggest that schools may seek to augment traditional social skills programmes with awareness raising about ASD among mainstream pupils to utilise peers’ apparent willingness to discount characteristics such as ‘shyness’

Elephant Moraine 96029, a very mildly aqueously altered and heated CM carbonaceous chondrite: Implications for the drivers of parent body processing

Elephant Moraine (EET) 96029 is a CMcarbonaceous chondrite regolith breccia with evidence for unusually mild aqueous alteration, a later phase of heating and terrestrial weathering. The presence of phyllosilicates and carbonates within chondrules and the fine-grained matrix indicates that this meteorite was aqueously altered in its parent body. Features showing that water-mediated processing was arrested at a very early stage include a matrix with a low magnesium/iron ratio, chondrules whose mesostasis contains glass and/or quench crystallites, and a gehlenite-bearing calcium- and aluminium-rich inclusion. EET 96029 is also rich in Fe,Ni metal relative to other CM chondrites, and more was present prior to its partial replacement by goethite during Antarctic weathering. In combination, these properties indicate that EET 96029 is one of the least aqueously altered CMs yet described (CM2.7) and so provides new insights into the original composition of its parent body. Following aqueous alteration, and whilst still in the parent body regolith, the meteorite was heated to ~400–600 °C by impacts or solar radiation. Heating led to the amorphisation and dehydroxylation of serpentine, replacement of tochilinite by magnetite, loss of sulphur from the matrix, and modification to the structure of organic matter that includes organic nanoglobules. Significant differences between samples in oxygen isotope compositions, and water/hydroxyl contents, suggests that the meteorite contains lithologies that have undergone different intensities of heating. EET 96029 may be more representative of the true nature of parent body regoliths than many other CM meteorites, and as such can help interpret results from the forthcoming missions to study and return samples from C-complex asteroids